Dynamic Control of DNA Origami Tiles Self-assembly by Transcriptional Modules

Biological cells exhibit adaptive and responsive behaviors by dynamically regulating self-assembly through signaling and regulatory networks that sense and process environmental information. Emulating this principle is crucial for engineering synthetic materials with life-like, reconfigurable functions. In this work, we design a transcriptional module whose activity is governed by spatial organization and use it to achieve dynamic control over the self-assembly of DNA origami tiles. The module is activated only when tiles dimerize, bringing its components into close proximity, while the RNA blocker strands it produces can disassemble the dimers through strand displacement, establishing a feedback loop. By integrating two mutually inhibitory tile pairs, we construct a bistable system whose assembly state can be switched by RNA inducers or upstream transcriptional circuits. This approach provides a general strategy for transcriptionally regulated, dynamic control of DNA nanostructure self-assembly, opening opportunities for applications in nanorobotics, biosensing, biomedicine, and artificial life systems.